In multicast/broadcast applications, data are transmitted from a server to multiple receivers over wired and/or wireless networks. A multicast system as used herein is a system in which a server transmits the same data to multiple receivers simultaneously, where the receivers form a subset of all the receivers up to and including all of the receivers. A broadcast system is a system in which a server transmits the same data to all of the receivers simultaneously. That is, a multicast system by definition can include a broadcast system.
Power management is an important requirement in customer premises equipment (CPE) and end devices. Today, this can be managed with tools in the CPE. However, such management in the home may conflict directly with the operator's desire to download services to the CPE at their convenience in order to optimize the infrastructure bandwidth usage across all users.
A common ecodesign principle advocated today is to embed power management functions in the Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) and/or end (client) devices. Such functionality allows the CPE equipment to be selectively turned off if there is no activity detected for a certain period of time. When a user requests a program (for example, from a remote control or a timed recording event), the CPE can be turned back on. In order for this to work, a small circuit is kept awake all the time. This circuit detects user inputs or a timed event and is capable of waking up the entire CPE to enable complete functionality.
The disadvantage of this approach is two-fold. First, operators push programs to users taking advantage of the available storage on the CPE. This can be a predictive push or a scheduled push on a customer request in a particular time window. The operator can manage a scarce resource i.e., the last mile bandwidth to the home, more effectively by pre-caching content in storage available at and/or on the CPE. In current systems, there does not exist a mechanism to turn the CPE on for network based events. Second, increasingly, there are CPE devices that act as home servers. Since CPEs (end devices) have network accessible local storage, they can be used to serve up content to other devices in the home. For this, CPE devices acting as home servers need to be awakened when local area network requests are directed towards the CPE from other end devices in the home.